Separatist trial judgement: sedition convictions

1. Faced with Torra's refusal to answer questions while demanding Sánchez "sit down and talk" or the separatist ideology on the BBC, let us continue to discover the facts of the judgement. Rull…
Published: Oct 23, 2019, 12:37 pm | On Twitter

2. Rull recognised facts during trial, appears in meetings in Jove's diary, took part in announcements and activities in defence of referendum, was part of team that presented date and question, and “admitted receiving up to six notifications” from Constitutional Court.
Published: Oct 23, 2019, 12:43 pm | On Twitter

3. Next question that has me wondering, also related to the conviction sections for Forcadell and Turull yesterday: given the court has chosen the narrative it has chosen to back the sentences, can you get to a conviction for sedition via a series of contempt charges?
Published: Oct 23, 2019, 12:51 pm | On Twitter

4. Rull "judged the presence of hotel-boats [for police reinforcement] in terms of 'aggression'", "tells how they stopped it from docking in the Port of Palamós" and "encouraged mass voting in the illegally convened referendum".
Published: Oct 23, 2019, 12:57 pm | On Twitter

5. Rull signed the decree calling for the referendum and took part in the decree that set up the Catalan government as an electoral administration.
Published: Oct 23, 2019, 1:00 pm | On Twitter

6. "The defendant stated during the trial that the signing of the referendum decree constituted the most important act of his political life". Like Turull, he argued that the "democratic principle" was above the "principle of legality".
Published: Oct 23, 2019, 1:04 pm | On Twitter

7. The Supreme Court, of course, is not convinced by that argument. The right to be elected "must be exercised within the framework of the law…the conditions for exercise [that power] shall be determined by law".
Published: Oct 23, 2019, 1:08 pm | On Twitter

8. "From the above perspective, it is not feasible to speak of a collision of antagonistic principles—the democratic principle and the principle of legality—since the former has no content if it is not framed within the law to give it precise meaning…"
Published: Oct 23, 2019, 1:14 pm | On Twitter

9. A citizen may not hide behind "his own vision of what he considers to be the democratic principle in order to circumvent the fulfilment of constitutional mandates".
Published: Oct 23, 2019, 1:15 pm | On Twitter

10. The Constitutional Court is the "safeguard of fundamental freedoms and rights and referee in the resolution of conflicts between powers". It gives boundaries to the sources of power in the nation.
Published: Oct 23, 2019, 1:19 pm | On Twitter

11. "Its legitimacy cannot be arbitrarily recognised or denied on the basis of its coincidence or rejection of the political interests beating at the heart of power".
Published: Oct 23, 2019, 1:20 pm | On Twitter

12. The narrative again: it is about more than a reproach for the referendum. There was "a concerted will" to "draw up a parallel legal order" as a means to deceive the sheep citizens and "promote the non-observance of laws and to hinder the enforcement of judicial orders".
Published: Oct 23, 2019, 1:27 pm | On Twitter

13. Rull "thus prevented the normal functioning of the State", and it was not just an idea but also the execution of acts, the creation of conditions "to prevent the functioning of public services and the action of the state according to the law".
Published: Oct 23, 2019, 5:07 pm | On Twitter

14. Regarding Rull and the Tweety Pie ship in the Port of Palamós, the Supreme Court concludes that he prevented it from docking and knew that the boat was a state ship that had arrived to house the police reinforcements sent from the rest of Spain.
Published: Oct 23, 2019, 5:12 pm | On Twitter

15. Sedition does not require "personally carrying out a material act that involves a public and tumultuous uprising", says the Supreme Court: "the relevant thing is to have taken a path of action", "to choose decisively the de facto abolishment of the current normative system".
Published: Oct 23, 2019, 5:21 pm | On Twitter

16. "The crime of sedition is committed by acts of uprising, but also by acts that fit the description of the crime that encourage the uprising of others".
Published: Oct 23, 2019, 5:28 pm | On Twitter

17. Summing up with Rull: stopping the Piolín boat from docking, calling the illegal referendum, presenting the date, the question and the premises, or constituting the electoral authority all "represent acts that undoubtedly fit the description of the crime of sedition".
Published: Oct 23, 2019, 5:36 pm | On Twitter

18. Let's continue with the judgement. We can finish the sedition convictions and then take a look at the issue of the misuse of public funds in detail: what did they do with the money? Dolors Bassa was regional employment minister, convicted of sedition.
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 5:39 pm | On Twitter

19. Bassa "incited citizens to ignore court orders" with a “false message” about “a referendum that was impossible to certify” after which “Catalonia would become […] a sovereign state”. Once again, we see the elements of judicial narrative.
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 5:42 pm | On Twitter

20. Puigdemont's government was “determined to complete its challenge to the foundations of the regulatory system that balances out and makes coexistence possible”. Bassa took part in this “challenge to constitutional order”. The aim? Again, not a republic but to hinder judges.
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 5:47 pm | On Twitter

21. Bassa signe the decree of September 6 along with the others, calling the referendum and she ignored Constitutional Court notifications to her personally. She took “executive decisions that were essential” for the referendum.
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 5:51 pm | On Twitter

22. From the regional employment ministry, with Bassa in charge, “part of the cost derived from the expenses generated by postal communications commissioned to the company Unipost was assumed” and they managed the registration of “up to 47,498 volunteers” with the Cridas app.
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 5:55 pm | On Twitter

23. The judgment gives Bassa responsibility for what happened at civic centres the day of Escoles Obertes, prior to the referendum, with the aim of “making it particularly difficult to comply with the orders of the Regional High Court”. Bassa “played a decisive role”.
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 6:02 pm | On Twitter

24. Bassa signed the decree for minimum services for the general strike days in October 2017. The Catalan government joined the strike and “the staff in the service of the Catalan government and the public sector were allowed to not discount the day of strike”.
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 6:05 pm | On Twitter

25. And again, the narrative: there was a “concerted strategy” by Puigdemont's Government to promote “the non-application of laws”, not to declare the Catalan republic but only to put pressure on Rajoy to get a referendum with guarantees. Citizens were cheated, again.
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 6:09 pm | On Twitter

26. Forn and the Catalan Police. Sedition. What does the Supreme Court consider proven? Again, the story. The referendum was an unworkable “artifice” to deceive citizens. “Actually, the only, TRUE and HIDDEN purpose that moved the co-defendants” was to put pressure on Rajoy.
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 6:14 pm | On Twitter

27. "Their statements were that rhetorical", says the Supreme Court, that on October 10, they all signed not a foundational document for the new republic but "a political manifesto WITH NO LEGAL EFFECT, a FANTASY declaration of independence".
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 6:17 pm | On Twitter

28. There, we come back to the meeting point between the judicial world and the political world, to the question we asked ourselves during the trial: at what point would a unilateral declaration of independence to break up Spain ever have been legal? At no point.
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 6:20 pm | On Twitter

29. The Supreme Court confirms that Jordi Sánchez was in charge in Barcelona on September 20, 2017, at the express request of Forn, who “gave orders to the Mossos d'Esquadra commanders to accept the intervention of the co-defendant Jordi Sánchez”.
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 6:24 pm | On Twitter

30. Forn became regional interior minister in July 2017, to take over from Jané for the referendum. The wording of some paragraphs opens up gaps in the preferred judicial narrative: “An agreed upon solution HAD always BEEN sought”. The past perfect tense, the past of the past.
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 6:38 pm | On Twitter

31. Because if the ultimate goal WAS ALWAYS to only put pressure on Rajoy, one would express oneself differently. What the Supreme Court is confirming there is that Jané testified that UNTIL THAT MOMENT dialogue had been sought. In July, something changed. Forn.
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 6:41 pm | On Twitter

32. Or again describing the testimony of Meritxell Ruiz, the former regional education minister, also dismissed in July 2017: “UP TO THEN the strategy had been the search for dialogue with the central government”. Up to then. Then something changed.
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 6:44 pm | On Twitter

33. In an email, Forn said that “Catalan law would prevail over others” in case of problems. Not that they were just going to disobey a couple of judges or break a Spanish law. There was already a Catalan law and that was going to prevail over all the others.
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 6:47 pm | On Twitter

34. The Supreme concludes, however, as with the others and according to the global narrative to fit the sedition conviction, that “there can be no other reasonable inference” than that Forn entered the Puigdemont government to PRESSURE RAJOY. It was just a "tactical shift".
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 6:54 pm | On Twitter

35. Later in the evening, when the BRIMO riot officers arrived outside the regional economy ministry building in Barcelona, Jordi Sánchez was still in charge and Forn, the regional interior minister with responsibility for the Catalan Police, kept him in that position.
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 6:59 pm | On Twitter

36. At the meeting between the Catalan Police chiefs and the Catalan government on September 28, Puigdemont did not say he would put more pressure on Rajoy if something unfortunate were to happen, but that “there would be a unilateral declaration of independence”.
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 7:11 pm | On Twitter

37. It was obvious that the Escoles Obertes activity “was designed and executed 'so that schools would not be closed'” on October 1 and “to make the ban on the vote ordered by the judge of the Regional High Court in Catalonia unviable".
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 7:16 pm | On Twitter

38. There was “cynical notoriety” in the famous plan to use pairs of Mossos officers on October 1 and that these would be enough to stop the vote. Some Mossos collaborated with the referendum. Some moved ballot boxes. Others allowed citizens to take them away.
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 7:27 pm | On Twitter

39. “Testifying evidence was also provided on the activities of members of the Mossos who were engaged in obtaining information on the movements of officers from state police forces, information that they communicated to their commanders.”
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 7:28 pm | On Twitter

40. On October 1, at polling stations: “…the presence of the Mossos did not only lack any activity aimed at getting people out of the polling stations, it was an occasion for them to inform [those gathered] of the policing strategy that would be followed in this regard.”
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 7:32 pm | On Twitter

41. More judicial narrative on describing the moment in which Trapero warned of the clash between thousands of police officers and two million citizens, “all of them willing not to give up their HOPEFUL EFFORT to build an UNVIABLE independent republic”.
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 7:35 pm | On Twitter

42. Jordi Sánchez “voluntarily and with the acquiescence of the defendant Forn, who confirmed his rank of interlocutor, assumed the promotion and leadership of the gathering that took place on September 20, 2017". Guilty of sedition.
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 7:37 pm | On Twitter

43. Jordi Sánchez, to the head of the Mossos BRIMO riot unit on the evening of September 20: “Get the BRIMO out of here […], what you are doing is not what we have agreed, get out of here”.
“Not even the seventh cavalry”, could have got in there, said the officer.
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 7:40 pm | On Twitter

44. “It is true—and it has been so accredited”, says the Supreme Court, “that at midnight he took to calling off the crowd” but “the action of the defendant as the leader of the ANC was absolutely necessary for the execution of seditious plans”.
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 7:43 pm | On Twitter

46. “What motivated Mr. Sánchez's action was to demonstrate to the whole of society […] that judges and magistrates exercising their constitutional function in Catalonia had lost the capacity to execute their decisions”.
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 7:48 pm | On Twitter

47. “Mr. Sánchez has not been convicted for taking part in or organising an illegal referendum, but for opposing court decisions and police actions to stop the referendum”.
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 7:53 pm | On Twitter

48. The calls to mobilise or for social cohesion around the pro-independence ideal, or the “burning speeches in favor of independence”, “have no criminal significance”, and Sánchez has not been convicted for destroying the vehicles of the Civil Guard on Sept. 20.
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 7:58 pm | On Twitter

49. Cuixart. Guilty of sedition. The referendum wasn't real. They deceived the poor separatist citizens even though the project “included the creation of a legal order that to break with the foundations of our legal system”. Was all about putting pressure on Rajoy.
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 8:00 pm | On Twitter

50. “A right to self-determination that would only be so for some citizens: the ones who LET THEMSELVES BE SEDUCED by calls from the Catalan government and other social and political actors towards a vote that was FALSELY presented as legitimate”.
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 8:03 pm | On Twitter

51. “It is a conflict between the concept of legitimacy held by some — more or less, but not all of them, not even most of them— and a legal order that many others — not necessarily fewer [than the first group] — also consider legitimate.”
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 8:06 pm | On Twitter

52. Both Sánchez and Cuixart called on “the population from the early hours of the morning via their Twitter accounts”, urging them “to defend Catalan institutions” because “they had declared war on those who wanted to vote”.
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 8:08 pm | On Twitter

53. Cuixart, “despite claiming the pacifism of the protest—which the court does not question—also appealed to the determination shown in the civil war, using the expression 'they shall not pass!' , and he challenged the state to come and seize the material”.
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 8:10 pm | On Twitter

54. On October 1, they sought “to prevent the enforcement of the court order by force, via the accumulation of people, overwhelming and dissuasive numerical superiority”. Passive resistance is also force, de facto, in the face of the law.
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 8:14 pm | On Twitter

55. One may not obey only those laws with which one agrees, the Supreme Court reminds readers. Otherwise, it would all be very chaotic. “It would mean suicide for the rule of law. Its self-destruction”.
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 8:17 pm | On Twitter

56. Cuixart “can and must defend [his convictions] with all the passion and will he considers necessary” and take part in and call demonstrations, “this is healthy, in that it demonstrates a deep involvement in the cultural, political and social world, in the debate of ideas”.
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 8:20 pm | On Twitter

57. “But the legitimate sphere of protest and struggle for one's own political and social ideas was breached when it passed over in to physical opposition to, to the material impediment of the execution of judicial decisions…”
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 8:21 pm | On Twitter

58. “what our Constitution cannot tolerate […] is to subject one of the most elementary requirements of the rule of law, compliance with the decision of a court […] to the will of one, ten, a thousand, thousands or millions of people”.
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 8:24 pm | On Twitter

59. On Twitter, Cuixart “'encouraged [people] to peacefully defend polling stations'. The adverb peacefully does not nullify the content of the central verb of the message. One cannot defend something if it is not with opposition and resistance”.
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 8:27 pm | On Twitter

61. One many not invoke fundamental rights—"protest, association, demonstration, speech"—or personal convictions to try to evade the consequences of criminal law, the Supreme Court says. If not, what would we do with manslaughters or kidnappings?
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 8:32 pm | On Twitter

62. “The politician, the citizen, the authority, the officer, would only have to say that the arguments “do not convince him”, that he has “other convictions” in order to make judicial decisions completely worthless, thus rendering all coexistence unviable”.
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 8:35 pm | On Twitter

63. “The decision to assume even the criminal consequences of the conduct covered by civil disobedience is the essence of that decision […] The consistent approach for those who invoke civil disobedience will be to take the punishment under the criminal law that he violated”.
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 8:37 pm | On Twitter

64. Cuixart said during the trial that “'…my current priority is not to get out of prison', thus coming close to the model of committing crimes out of conviction that has led to criminological studies and reflections, as well as to strict criminal dogmatics”.
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 8:41 pm | On Twitter

65. We have made it to page 400. In the next thread, you shall have all the details of the misuse of public funds by the former members of Pugidemont's regional government. Thank you for reading.
Published: Oct 31, 2019, 8:44 pm | On Twitter

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